Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins says he is “adamant” former police commissioner Andrew Coster did not brief him about an affair Jevon McSkimming had prior to his promotion to deputy police commissioner.
In an interview with TVNZ’s Q+A with Jack Tame which aired on Sunday, Coster claimed he told Hipkins about the affair in July 2022 while Hipkins was Police Minister.
“I told him that Jevon had told me that he had an affair,” Coster said. “That it was with a much younger woman that went badly wrong, and that email allegations were now flying as a result of it.”
While he could not prove the conversation happened, Coster said: “As we were travelling, sitting in the back of the car together, I gave him that briefing. It was a casual conversation, it wasn’t a formal thing, but it did happen.”
Speaking on Breakfast today, Hipkins strongly denied Coster’s claim, and said McSkimming would have not been promoted if he was briefed.
“I spent quite a bit of time thinking about this a lot over the weekend as to whether there was some conversation that I had missed and that I had forgotten about.
“I am adamant that conversation never happened. I checked with my press secretary who was in the car with me for the entire trip where Andrew Coster claimed he had briefed me, she also has no recollection of that conversation having ever happened.”
Hipkins added this isn’t the sort of issue he would have “simply just forgotten about”.
“Had I been told about it I would have had a lot more questions about it.”
Hipkins said he would fully support a further independent inquiry into the situation, but it was up to the current Government.
“I think there is clearly a need to look at what has happened here. Overall police culture, Ms Z was clearly not treated appropriately. The public do deserve to have confidence in everyone who is making decisions around this.
“I am trying to be as open and up front as I can, I really spent some time thinking about whether there was something that I had missed, I am absolutely certain that this information was never brought to my attention, and had it been I certainly would have taken further action and Jevon McSkimming would have never got the promotion he got.”
Police Minister Mark Mitchell has responded to claims from Andrew Coster that he was told about aspects of the Jevon McSkimming case earlier than it was made public. (Source: Breakfast)
Current Police Minister Mark Mitchell also denied he was briefed by Coster earlier than he had previously said.
Mitchell told Breakfast yesterday Coster’s claim was “not correct” and “utter nonsense”. He said he was unaware of the allegations before November 6, 2024, and that he would have acted sooner if he had been made aware as Coster claimed.
“If he had brought forward to me at all any issues around Ms Z and Mr McSkimming and laid out the facts for me, then I would have said exactly the same thing that I said to him on the sixth of November: what support has been put in place for Ms Z?
“I’m a father with daughters, and I’ve been an MP for 15 years, and one of our jobs as a local MP is to protect people against the power of the state.”
